Some ten years ago, when I decided to move “back” to Croatia, I started developing an interest in the language of the place. It was difficult to say which language that was, though. Serbo-Croatian had vanished, as had Croato-Serbian. In the meanwhile, the court in The Hague dealing with war crimes in former Yugoslavia came up with yet another language, the so-called Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, or BCS. The name of the language follows the horrors of civil war, but it is quite useful as far as it goes. Eager to understand the roots of many words of relevance to my new world after thirty years in America and Britain, I first got an Italian-English dictionary. That would be useful in Istria, I thought. Then I got a German-English dictionary, which would be useful in Zagreb. In addition, I got a Russian-English dictionary to identify the “original” Slavic words in BCS. Only a short while ago I got a Turkish-English dictionary that is useful across the region. That completes the roots of the language that people around me speak. But it has just crossed my mind that the language that underlies my interest is actually English. It is the key to all the dictionaries I have gotten over the years. And it is the language in which I write and think. Of course, it is also becoming an increasingly important part of BCS. As of late, more and more words in that hybrid language have English roots. As is the case with Italian, German, Russian, and Turkish, as well. Quite soon I will need to get an English-English dictionary in which “frend” will be “friend,” “bed” will be “bad,” and “sori” will be “sorry.”